Caregiver benefits are the secret weapon in post-COVID recruiting

How do we bring millions of women back to work? For Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, the answer is simple: caregiver benefits.

Jurist-Rosner is the co-founder and CEO of Wellthy, a benefits provider that works with employers and employees to coordinate care for family members. And after a year that forced millions of women to leave their jobs — largely to take on family caregiving responsibilities — she knows that recapturing this talent will require an increase in support at home.

“A lot of companies are discussing the hybrid work environment, which sounds very flexible and appealing,” Jurist-Rosner says. “But the problem is, you can’t easily hire hybrid care.”

While the idea of extending caregiver benefits may sound simple, implementing this kind of support — especially across diverse workforces — is anything but. How can employers find cost-effective ways to better support (and attract) female talent?

Read more: Prudential teams with Wellthy to offer employers caregiving benefits

Jurist-Rosner will answer these questions and more on a panel at Workplace Strategies Agenda, a virtual Employee Benefit News event taking place July 21-22. The CEO will be joined by other business leaders to discuss the “she-cession” and ways to successfully bring that talent back to work. EBN checked in with Jurist-Rosner to get a sneak preview of some of the insights she’ll be sharing at the upcoming event. (If you haven’t registered yet, you still have time!)

Courtesy of Wellthy

What do caregiving needs look like for employees as we move to post-pandemic work?

We’re hearing about companies who want their workers to be in the office for one to two weeks every month, and that makes it hard to find a nanny or an in-home aid to take care of parents or a loved one with disabilities. Plus, there’s a care shortage in certain geographies and for certain care needs, and it’s all creating a perfect storm that will continue to impact women. Sorry, that sounds so doom and gloom.

But it is a bit of a perfect storm, for sure. How are you seeing employers try to extend support?

A lot of our largest employer partners have come to us to discuss the unique needs of their workforce. There’s a notion here of intersectionality with caregiving, where needs can depend on economic situations and an individual’s cultural and racial background. Employers will say, there’s this pocket in our workforce that we need extra help to support, or there’s a particular issue that we’re struggling to solve. The message to employers is to think about working with your vendor partners, and really collaborating to solve for those concerns.

Read more: Wellthy helps employee caregivers access COVID-19 vaccine

For employers who might be interested in extending these kinds of benefits but are concerned about immediate costs, how would you explain the long-term impact?

There are two very real financial ROI metrics for employers to consider right now. First, employees not having to take a caregiving-related leave of absence is incredibly valuable. There’s the direct cost of leave, and if you have to shift responsibilities — either by hiring a replacement or redistributing that work — it’s very disruptive to projects. Second is retention. When we work with families, a third of survey respondents tell us that Wellthy helped them not need to resign because of caregiving. For companies, that means you don’t have to recruit new talent, you don’t have to onboard, you don’t lose that institutional knowledge. That’s a very high ROI.

For more tangible takeaways and actionable insights to navigate the current workplace reality and create a roadmap for the future, click here to secure your place at the WORKPLACE STRATEGIES AGENDA virtual summit on July 21-22.